As part of its 2001 program, Grounding, V2_Organisation
presented, in collaboration with Las Palmas, International
Centre for Image Culture and Mediatechnology: Body Movies.
From the 31st of August till the 23rd of September the Schouwburgplein
(a square in the centre of Rotterdam, Cultural Capital of
Europe) was transformed by the projection of huge interactive
portraits on the façade of the Pathé Cinema building.

Over
one thousand portraits - which were taken on the streets
of Rotterdam, Madrid, Mexico and Montreal - were shown,
using robotically controlled projectors located around the
square. However, the portraits only appeared inside the
projected shadows of local passers-by, whose silhouettes
measured between 2 to 22 metres high, depending on how far
people were from the powerful light sources placed on the
floor of the square.
When no one was walking past the Schouwburgplein
the portraits could not be seen, since the light sources
on the floor completely washed them off with strong white
light. As soon as someone walked on the square, his or her
shadow was projected and the portraits were revealed within
it. A camera-based tracking system monitored the location
of the shadows in real time, and when the shadows matched
all the portraits in a given scene, the control computer
issued an automatic command to change the scene to the next
set of portraits. This way the people on the square were
invited to embody different representational narratives.
Up to 80 people could take part at any given time, controlling
1,200 square metres of projections and creating a collective
experience that nonetheless allowed discreet individual
participation.

The shadow interface was a direct reference
to Samuel van Hoogstraten's engraving The Shadow Dance
which appears in his Inleiding tot de Hogeschool der Schilderkunst.
This engraving, made in Rotterdam in 1675, shows a minute
source of light placed at ground level and the shadows of
actors taking on demonic or angelic characteristics depending
on their size. Body Movies transformed the building of a
cinema into a vehicle to narrow the distance between people
and urban representation.